DoubleClick's “Boomerang” is a service for advertisers that places a cookie on computers of visitors to an advertiser's site for the purpose of finding those visitors on other sites where DoubleClick is the ad server (“ad” is short for advertisement). When the same visitors are found on those other sites, additional advertiser's ads are served to them by the DoubleClick ad sever or by the advertiser's ad server following a redirect from the DoubleClick ad server.
The only server that can read a cookie on a user's computer is a server operating under the same domain as the server that placed the cookie on a user's computer to begin with. In other words, a cookie placed by a server operating under one domain cannot be read by another server working under a separate domain. That is why the advertiser cannot expect to place a cookie of its own (e.g., ford.com cookie) on a visitor to its site and then later expect the DoubleClick ad server (doubleclick.com) to be able to recognize the visitor when that visitor is visiting sites where DoubleClick serves ads by reading the ford.com cookies. Only a server operating under the DoubleClick domain can read a cookie placed by a server operating under the DoubleClick domain. So, DoubleClick needs to place a doubleclick.com cookie on visitors to the ford.com site for DoubleClick to later find those visitors within other sites, i.e., where the DoubleClick ad server is used to serve ads.
For a site to have its ad served by an ASP-hosted ad server, such as the one operated by DoubleClick, the site needs to redirect visitors from the site to the DoubleClick ad server, to fetch the ad from the server. Following the redirect from the site, the visitor accesses the DoubleClick ad server. Because the DoubleClick server is operating under the DoubleClick domain, it can read the DoubleClick cookie or cookies and then recognize that it encountered the same visitor in the past. In this example, the DoubleClick ad server recognizes the visitor as someone who visited the ford.com site.
AlmondNet, Tacoda, RevenueScience, and other companies (herein “BT companies”; “BT” stands for behavioral targeting) specialize in targeting ads based on observed behavior of sites' visitors. BT companies place a cookie (or cookies) on the computers of visitors to specific sections of a publisher's website or on the computers of visitors of the publisher who conducted a specific action such as search, click content, click an ad, request information, acquire a product, etc.
The placement of cookies allows those publishers or the BT company itself to sell ads to advertisers. Those ads will be presented to the visitors when they are found later on the same site or on other sites. Such sites can be either a site where the BT company's software is used or a site where the BT company has bought media. The BT company may buy the media on behalf of itself or on behalf of the publisher, who is interested in delivering ads to its audience outside the publisher's site.
Although a BT company (AlmondNet, Tacoda, RevenueScience, etc.) acts as an agent that places cookies on the computers of publisher's visitors for the purpose of delivering targeted ads to the publisher's visitors on other sites, the publisher can work without an agent and place cookies or tags on the computers of the publisher's own visitors for the purpose of delivering ads to those visitors on other sites where the publisher buys ad space. Such a publisher, acting without an agent, is also included in the definition of a BT company.
A publisher may also be referred to as a “profile supplier” when it transfers profile information, such as behavioral information, demographic information, etc., to a BT company. Therefore, a publisher that is a BT company may also be its own profile supplier. Furthermore, although the name “BT company” implies the targeting of ads is based on collected behavioral profiles, a BT company may also collect other kinds of profile information, such as demographic information or user-provided information, and target ads to those visitors wherever found based on the collected profile information.
Another kind of a BT company is a company that has software installed on a person's computer, such as toolbar software, desktop search software, weather software, or any kind of software that is used by the computer's user. Such software also monitors the computer user's visits to different publishers' sites and media properties and collects profile information about the computer user for the purpose of delivering ads to the user within ad space of sites and media properties that the user visits based on the collected profiles.
A BT company using software installed on a user's computer does not need the cooperation of a visited media property to collect information about the visitor's visit because that software monitors whatever the user is doing on his or her computer. A BT company that has software installed on a user's computer is therefore its own profile supplier. Such software can place a cookie or another kind of tag on the user's computer. Because the software is installed on the user's computer, it can write cookies readable by any domain. That means that the BT company can place a tag or cookie of a second media property, if the BT company would like the second media property to recognize the visitor when the visitor visits that second media property site, by simply having the software place a cookie operating under the domain of the second property on the visitor's computer. The software may also report the collected profiles to a central server of the BT company.
The central server may also tag the visitor or arrange for the visitor to be tagged by operators of other media properties. A BT company can place a cookie on a site's section when a visitor's computer visits that section, if a code of the company was integrated into the page of that section by the site that owns the page. The code (e.g., HTML or Java) redirects to the BT company's server all visitors to the page. Also, in the case that the BT company is the publisher itself, the publisher will simply “cookie” (by itself) all visitors that either read a specific content, search, click, ask for information, make a phone call, etc.
The BT company's server, which either gave the site a unique code for a page, received from the page its URL, or received access to the page's content that could be analyzed by the BT company's server, etc., identifies the content read by the page's visitor or the keyword searched for by the user, or an ad clicked on the page, etc. The content read by the page visitor could be identified by the BT company's server whether the content was reported by the site or whether the content was identified following the analysis of the page. The server then places a cookie on the user's computer indicating what content was read by the visitor on the page, what keyword was searched for by the user, or what ad was clicked on the page, etc. The placed cookie indicates that information (1) in the cookie per se, (2) in a central database operated by the server where the cookie ID is used as a record finder, or (3) both in the cookie and in the database.
Although the above description relates to cookies, a cookie is only one example of a possible tag. A tag generally is a unique identifier used to mark a person electronically visiting a media property, such as a web site, TV channel, radio show, or the like, using a computer, a mobile device, a TV set, a TV set top box, or any other device.
The tag is used for the purpose of delivering additional ads to a visitor to one media property when that visitor is found later on other media properties, based on the visitor's profile collected on the first media property. The profile could be the observed behavior of the visitor on the media property, demographic information collected on the media property, profile information provided by the visitor to the media property, etc.
Because the purpose of the tag is to enable the delivery of additional ads on other media properties visited by the visitor, and because the delivery of an ad requires only control of the ad space and not necessarily control of the entire media property visited by the visitor, a media property (in the present context) can also be defined as any equipment that controls an ad space viewed by a visitor, including a web site, an ad network's site (where the ad network represents the ad space of different sites), a TV program, some of the ad space within TV programs or TV channels (represented by a cable company), a TV network, or any ad space for which an entity is allowed to sell an advertisement and deliver it within the ad space; whether the ad space is owned by that entity, or whether the entity pays the owner of the ad space when using its ad space to deliver an ad sold by the entity. Ad space can be on a web site, in a TV program, in a text message, in a radio show, in any broadcasted material, in any streaming video or audio, etc. An ad space can be a fixed position on a page, or the ad space can be made available by a web site to an ad network (for example) only when the web site did not sell all of the site's ad inventory and therefore wishes to make some of the inventory available to the ad network.
In the case of a media property controlling an ad space viewed by a visitor, a specific ad space on a page might be controlled only temporarily. For example, in the case of the web site that did not sell all the ad impressions available to be delivered within an ad space on a page and therefore makes the unsold ad space available to the ad network to fill, the ad network will have temporary control of the ad space, i.e., when that ad space is given to it by the web site. Once the site redirects the ad space on the page to the ad network (so the ad network could fill the ad space with an ad sold by the ad network), the ad network controls the ad space and has access to the visitor viewing the ad space that was redirected to the ad network by the site, and therefore the ad network's equipment is considered a media property, as it controls an ad space viewed by a visitor.
The tag can be placed on the device used by the user to access the first media property where the user's profile was collected (in case of observed behavior, that behavior can be reading a specific content, searching, clicking an ad or content, making a phone call, asking for product information, acquiring a product, or taking any other kind of action). A tag placed on the device (1) could be read only by a server operating under the same domain as the server that placed the tag on the device to begin with as in the case of a cookie for example, (2) could be placed on the device when the user visited the first media property, and then the tag can be read by any second media property visited by the visitor, or (3) could be encrypted and, while accessed by any second media property visited by the visitor, the tag could be deciphered only by second media property computers that received the deciphering code from the first media property. In case of a tag placed by software installed on a user's computer, the tag could be whatever the software wants it to be, including a cookie of any domain.
A tag does not have to be placed on the user's device. A tag can also be used in a central database of a BT company or a central database of any second media property visited by the visitor, where the tag could be a unique identifier either of the device or of the user. In the case where the tag identifies the device, the tag might denote an IP address, a phone number, a device's manufacturer serial number, etc. A cookie placed on the device can also uniquely identify the device and the cookie therefore can be used as a tag in a central database. In the case where the tag identifies the user, the tag might denote the username and password used to access a media property, a user's name and address, a user's e-mail, a user's social security number, or any other personal identifiable information.
As already mentioned, the observed behavior of a visitor to a first media property is referred to as profile information about a specific visitor. A visitor's profile might be enhanced by the visitors' observed behavior on other media properties or by other profile information collected on other media properties.
A visitor's profile can be represented by a unique tag, or the profile can be stored with the tag, whether the tag is placed on the device, on a central database, or both. For example, the profile can be stored within a cookie (tag) on a visitor's device, or the profile can be stored in a central database where the tag connected to the profile is used as a unique identifier of the visitor's device or of the visitor personally. The profile can also be saved on both the device and a central database.
One of the major challenges in targeting a first site visitor on another site with an ad based on his observed behavior on sites visited by him previously (such as the first site) is actually finding the visitor on other sites.
Depending on the tag placed (or arranged to be placed) by the BT companies, the visitor could be recognized either by the entity that placed the tag to begin with (which requires access by that entity to the tag when the visitor visits a second media property) or by the second media property reading the tag (in which case the tag can be placed by the second media property if the BT company so arranges).
BT companies, acting as an agent, can find visitors tagged by them, when the tagged visitors are present on sites that use the BT companies' software (either to serve ads or in conjunction with those sites' ad servers). BT companies (whether it is acting as an agent, is the publisher itself, or is operating with any other BT company) can find visitors tagged by them, when the visitors are present on sites and ad networks where the BT companies buy media.
To make the process of finding people who visited a first media property on other media properties more efficient, BT companies enable sites and ad networks (from whom the BT companies buy media) to also place their cookies on the computers of people (visitors) on whose computers the BT company has placed its own cookie. That technique is similar to the way DoubleClick's Boomerang system places cookies on visitors to an advertiser site for the purpose of finding those visitors later on other sites where Doubleclick serves ads.
An ad network ad server (or any other server of the ad network) or a site's ad server (or any other server of the site) can place their own cookies on the computers of visitors that are redirected to them by the BT companies, for the purpose of later recognizing those visitors within their own ad space (i.e., the ad space of the ad networks or the sites).
This process—where sites and ad networks place cookies on visitors' computers redirected to them by BT companies (or other entities interested in additional ads presented to their audience elsewhere)—is sometimes referred to as “cookie matching.”
For example, weather.com might place a weather.com cookie on a user's computer marking him or her as a visitor to BT company #1, following a redirect from BT company #1 server. Later, if and when the weather.com ad server recognizes that the same visitor (previously redirected to him by BT company #1) happened to visit weather.com (weather.com will recognize the visitor by reading its own weather.com cookie, which marked the visitor as a BT company #1 visitor), the weather.com ad server can, if it wishes, redirect the visitor's computer to the BT company #1 server, to have an ad served to the visitor, either by BT company #1's ad server or another ad server to which BT company #1 ad server further redirects the visitor. The weather.com ad server's decision, whether or not to redirect the visitor's computer to BT company #1's server can be based on the price that BT company #1 promised to pay weather.com for the presentation of an ad within weather.com's ad space, to a visitor previously redirected to weather.com by BT company #1′s server.
Although the above-described processes enable a second media property to recognize a first media property visitor, it is still a very inefficient process for the following reasons:
(1) Media properties' ad space prices vary.
(2) Profiles of media properties' visitors are worth different amounts to advertisers depending on the profiles. For example, a person who searched for a “mortgage” on a search engine might be presented with a mortgage-related ad, for which the advertiser is willing to pay $3 if that person clicks on that ad. A person who searched for “socks” on a search engine might be presented with a socks-related ad, for which the advertiser is willing to pay $0.50 if that person clicks on that ad. A person who visited the mutual fund section of a site might be presented with a mutual-fund related ad (wherever the person is found, i.e., either on the same site or on other sites), in which case the advertiser is willing to pay $25 for every thousand ads (CPM) presented to people who visited that mutual fund section.
(3) The same person might have several profile attributes in his or her profile (as a result, for example, of that person conducting several different searches and visiting different sites). Different advertisers might be willing to pay different amounts for delivering ads to the person based on the specific profile attribute or attributes that the respective advertisers are looking to target.
In summary, the cost of ad space at a second media property might not be covered by revenues generated for a BT company buying the space, i.e., from an ad delivered within the second media property ad space based on a profile collected in a first media property or properties. Alternatively, the revenues might cover the media cost but not deliver satisfactory margins to the BT company, when taking into account other costs, such as ad sales people cost, ad serving cost etc.